METHOD OF REDUCING PRESSURE OF NATURAL GAS Russian patent published in 2002 - IPC

FIELD: methods of preheating gas due to use of energy potential of compressed gas and ambient heat; gas-distributing stations. SUBSTANCE: part of high-pressure natural gas is cooled due to recuperative heat exchange with flow of low-pressure gas before supplying it to standard regulators of gas-distributing station; then, gas is admitted to vortex tube where it is divided into two flows at different temperature (cold and hot flows) in the course of reducing pressure. Cold flow is heated due to ambient heat in one of two change-over atmospheric heat exchangers and is combined with low-pressure gas flow after gas-distributing station. Then, it is preheated due to recuperative heat exchange with high-pressure gas and evacuated to consumer's main combining with hot flow. EFFECT: possibility of making natural gas pressure reducing process close to isothermic process and obtaining positive temperature of gas after gas-distributing stations, thus excluding freezing and swelling of ground along head sections of gas lines. 1 dwg